The exhibition bearing the title “Pictorial References on Memory and Time” attempts to showcase the importance of memory for the art of painting and the artistic procedure, as well as the way time is conveyed in contemporary painting. A selection of works from the Sotiris Felios Collection will be displayed at 16 Fokionos Negri. The exhibition raises a question which concerned the pioneering art movements of the early 20th century (the relation between space and time) giving, at the same time, the opportunity to consider the importance of memory in shaping personal and collective identity today. At a time when, due to the economic crisis and social changes, these identities are being tested, issues such as memory, management and evaluation of the past seem particularly relevant and necessary not through an ethnocentric view, but through a deeper strain of self-awareness. As an art form, painting transforms through its own language aspects of this identity and reflects, among other things, aesthetic values, the culture of daily life, the way we grow older, the stories we hear, the art we see and the bonds we develop.

Although in these particular works of the exhibition the intention of the creators was not necessarily the render of time, this curatorial proposal gathers them into a single framework and in an open, broad approach of time and memory. Following the recent exhibitions of the Sotiris Felios Collection in the annexes of the National Gallery in Nafplion and Sparta, this presentation suggests another reading of this private art collection which contains in its core the contemporary Greek figurative painting.

Works such as those of Michalis Manoussakis, Tassos Mantzavinos Anna Maria Tsakali, Giorgos Rorris, Stefanos Daskalakis, Alecos Levidis, Kostas Papanikolaou, Edouard Sacaillan, Emmanuil Bitsakis and Jannis Psychopedis, among others, offer different senses of time and touch the issue of memory.

Tours for the public will take place during the weekend of 14-15 December and 11-12 January from 13:00 to 14:00 by the exhibition curator. Opening: Tuesday 10th December at 20:00.